


face the light

by DaughteroftheCosmos



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: "is anyone gonna project onto this halfling", Angst, Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, Sad Ending, and not waiting for an answer, hamid POV, mostly this is just me looking at hamid and saying, nothing super detailed, spoilers for japan arc (ish)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24835996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughteroftheCosmos/pseuds/DaughteroftheCosmos
Summary: hamid does not understand zolf. he wishes that he did. he thinks about costs. he pays one.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Zolf Smith, not romantic
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	face the light

The basement is wet, warm and sticky with thick, stagnant air. You know how to breathe the dry heat of a desert, how to drape yourself with shawls and fineries to fight the arid warmth. You know the slick of sweat on your skin, but this? This isn’t something you know. You have faced so many things you do not know. 

Azu lies slumped in the corner, snoring and still. You spare a moment to envy her shaven head, your own hair plastered down slick and sticky and dripping sweat into your eyes. She doesn’t seem to mind the humidity, sleeping through it without a care in the world. For not the first time you wish that  _ you _ did not have quite so many cares.

Zolf is sleeping too, slumped down in a rickety wooden chair outside the bars of your cage in a mirror image to Azu’s slumber. It looks dreadfully uncomfortable; they both do, in fairness, but somehow their faces look soft with rest. 

Logically, you know that staring up at the ceiling all night does you no favors. At first you had yourself convinced that tracing the whorls and patterns of the wood comprising the long slats above you would be monotonous enough to help you sleep; it is hours later that you finally accept this served only to calm your racing thoughts to the level to prevent all-out panic, but sleep remains far distant. 

You allow yourself a vicious, selfish moment.  _ It isn’t fair!  _ you demand, and if you were to speak it aloud it would be the wail of a child.  _ This isn’t fair!  _ you command, and tears brought by exhaustion well in your eyes. You fight them down bitterly, intent to allow your friends their sleep, at the very least. Intent to never again face them with useless red eyes. 

Your back hurts, and your head presses uncomfortably into the thin pillow. You shift your robes around you in a fruitless attempt to find a proper pressure, to trick yourself into believing you are snuggled safe and warm in soft sheets without overheating. You  _ cannot sleep, _ and after everything it being  _ this _ to bring you to tears seems- seems perfectly in character. Seems just like you, really. Zolf would laugh a bitter laugh to see you crying on the stone floor, would tell a story of how  _ he _ slept through a storm in the middle of a rolling, furious ocean- or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe, even after everything, he would offer you kindness. 

You look towards the whorls, but they do not offer you answers. You do not sleep. 

___

You spare a moment to call your brother, after everything, after Shoin. Zolf is furious with you, for reasons you do not entirely understand. You are not a _fool,_ but you are tired in a way that settles deep and restless in your bones. A deep, shivering panic had settled in your skin. You’d seen the eyes of your sister, dead and unmoving, and could not breathe any longer before you _knew._ You could not see eyes like those ever again. Them or the world, Zolf says, like it’s easy, and you bite back the truth: them, every time. Is this supposed to make you a bad person? Caring for your family? A whisper settles in your rib cage, reminding you of your responsibilities. You did not choose them but they are yours, and you fight back the question of what you would do if your brother lay dying in front of you, knowing that saving him would doom millions.You fight back the question because you know exactly what you would do, if it really, truly came to it. You fight it back because it may, some day, and you are not ready, not like Zolf seems to be. You wonder bitterly if you will ever understand Zolf completely, and then wonder if he wonders the same about you. 

(You wonder later, then, if in fact he understands you perfectly. If in your eyes he sees the boy he used to be, and if it doesn't hurt him to watch as you are able to cling to your family. Not everyone has the chance to say goodbye. That he does not seem to know that he is part of your Them: that is what hurts you most. That you are almost certainly not part of his.)

___

“I’m  _ sorry,” _ you demand, as each cell in your body yearns desperately for a world where that is enough. After you have made yet another mistake, disappointed yet another friend. It  _ is _ your fault and you know it, as so many things have been. Your guilt and self-pity help no one. Your actions help no one. Why have you spent your whole life digging yourself out of a grave of your own making? Shoveling dirt over your own thrashing body, while you claw and claw and claw at the rock and stone and insist that it is good, now. Exposing yourself over and over to the sun’s pitiless rays because it is the right thing to do.  _ I am here, now! I am here in the light! I am wrong but I can grow!  _ as you wait, knowing and scared, for the day where it is not enough. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and fear the day has come to pass.

____

He has given up masking his anger at you. You don’t begrudge him a moment of it. You used to, to be certain, used to fiercely resent the duality of pity and resentment in Zolf’s eyes that he so stubbornly tried to hide, after everything. Does he see Bertie in you? Would it have given him comfort to see him choking and dead? You imagine for a wild moment a world in which Zolf could have drowned him the instant he first stepped out of line. You picture the stoic strength in his arms as he holds Bertie’s face slack under the surface. You watch your long-dead friend struggle and twitch, and do nothing. “Justice,” says the Zolf in your head, and you swallow bile, and agree. You don’t begrudge him a moment of it. 

___

At the end of it all, or at least of your hero’s tale, you see your father’s eyes, dark circles and deep, deep bags. He does not say anything, but for once he does not need to. You know, have always known, and still fiercely do not understand why your friends do not. 

_ For the family,  _ you think, and for once in your life you do not hesitate, the choice far easier than even you expected it would be. Them  _ and  _ the world, it seems, with a different cost, the only cost you and Zolf could both respect. With a snap of your fingers, flame begins to dance around you, to catch in your cloak, to graze quick and sharp as hot, dry wind past your scaled face.

_ Bring it into the light _ , you think, and smile, and wonder for a final moment how brightly you will burn. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed my incredibly self-indulgent, possibly OOC deep dive into hamid's character. i just. love this deeply deeply flawed halfing boy with all of my heart and soul. i kin i stan and i am unapologetic. kudos and comments are always appreciated! let me know if there is anything you would like me to tag for that i missed!


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